This was the great discovery Lorimer had made traveling the plains and collecting his specimens, and now he was determined to find the final piece of evidence necessary to support it. All signs suggested that the intelligent proto-organism of which men are the most direct descendants first came to life in water (more specifically in salt water), where it would have vegetated like a thinking shell-less mollusk. Exploring the bottom of the ocean for proof of its existence was, of course, not a possibility. But luckily enough, there were some seabeds one could walk on. One such sea floor was the great salt lake of Saladillo. Formerly a landlocked sea, Saladillo had dried out millions of years ago, and given the inaccessible location and the extreme conditions of this salt flat, Lorimer expected it to be untouched by man. If confirmation of the existence of this first creature, this disembodied brain, could be found anywhere, it would be in Saladillo.
Silence followed Lorimer’s discourse. What Håkan had just been told seemed to him as remote as the stars above—so distant from any idea ever taught to him, so removed from any thought that he could have come up with himself, that it would have defied even his brother’s imagination. Linus’s wildest tales were tame compared to Lorimer’s narrative, and everything in Håkan’s mind compelled him to dismiss what he had just heard. His limited knowledge of the Bible, his common sense, and, above all, his own humanity made it impossible for him to believe that his seniors, no matter how removed, had been animals. Had he understood Lorimer’s rudimentary Swedish correctly? Even more outrageous and insulting was the notion of that primordial snot. Had he not been created in god’s image? What, then, was god? And if this process was, as Lorimer claimed, still in motion, what would men become in the distant future? Would those faraway descendants regard his own bones as the carcass of some primitive beast?
And yet, despite his profound misgivings, Håkan felt his own past (with all that he thought he knew, with his father’s few firm words, with the minister’s unquestioned doctrine, and even with his brother’s lovely stories) dissolve into the night and fade in the presence of the impressive and awful history he had just heard.
7.
The light was suffocating. They were gagged, stuffed, choked with whiteness. Through tears and fluttering eyelids they could barely make out the plain—as level and as blinding as a frozen lake. Despite the thumping heat, Håkan’s first reflex was to look down to make sure they were standing on thick enough ice. On the frosted flats, a raised beehive pattern, each cell about four feet at its widest point, extended in every direction as far as the eye could reach. The design was surprisingly regular, and the lines of salt, protruding an inch or two, collapsed with a crunch under the wagon wheels but were often strong enough to resist the weight of their steps. The horizon was a noose.
Lorimer led his party farther into the glaring expanse. Just as James Brennan would stop at every turn to pick up a pebble or pan some dust in search of gold, Lorimer constantly paused to gather up crumbs of salt, inspect them carefully, and finally toss them away, growing more somber with each discarded sample. He dismounted so often that eventually he decided to walk, and he kneeled down so frequently that in the end he just proceeded on all fours. His men, still on their horses, looked at him, disconcerted. There was no talking. Even though they did not stop to rest at any point, by the time they camped for the night they had not advanced more than six miles, according to their disgruntled tracker’s estimation. Lorimer, sullen after his unsuccessful first day at the salt lake, refused dinner and went to work in the wagon. Later that night, the men huddled around the small fire (wood had become a major concern) while the naturalist remained in the outskirts of the circle of light, a solitary bulk. Håkan could not quite follow the words whispered over the tin mugs, but their bitterness was plain. As the fire died out, it was agreed that posting a lookout was an unnecessary precaution in that wasteland.
The following few days were no different. The men advanced at a snail’s pace through the salt flats, walking ahead of Lorimer, who, magnifying glass in hand, squatted over every flake and crawled across miles of salt looking for traces of his primeval being. The sky was as hard and deserted as the land. The men were wrapped in fabric, leaving only a slit open for the eyes—sometimes, exhausted by the whiteness, they even covered this opening and, knowing there were no obstacles for miles around, followed the blurred ghosts of their companions, still visible through the threads. They barely spoke. The alkali dust hardened and cracked their lips and made their noses bleed. Most of their food (biscuits, charqui) was salted, which gave Håkan the impression that he was being devoured by the desert with each bite he took. They were running out of water.
One morning, before dawn, they woke up and found that Lorimer was gone. They looked around in the twilight, using their hands as visors, as if somehow that would help them penetrate the shadows. Someone tripped on a rope tautly stretched toward the horizon. They walked along it. A few hundred feet later they found Lorimer crouching at the end of the rope and following with his eyes the straight line it traced over the salt. Ignoring them, he walked up and down, holding a half-full jar with some markings, stopping here and there and placing it horizontally on the rope while studying its contents. In the end, he looked up, smiling for the first time in days, and told everyone to get ready to ride at the swiftest pace possible while still sparing the horses. They were going farther into the salt field. After a moment of silence, the tracker spoke up. No one was sure how wide Saladillo was, he said, and there was no guarantee they could traverse it before exhausting their provisions and animals. They had to go back at once, since they had almost reached the point of no return. Following the tracker’s speech, the rest of the men, usually shy and respectful of Lorimer’s authority, started voicing their concerns and threatened to turn around and abandon their employer. In a stern voice Håkan had never heard him use before, Lorimer reminded his men of their obligations, which they would have to fulfill to be paid in full. He also told them they would not get far without the supplies in the wagon, which they would have to steal from him, together with horses and burros. The penalty for this offense, as they knew, was death by hanging. There was a pause. Then, more calmly, he asked for their trust and assured them he was not leading them to their death. He knew how to obtain enough water to cross Saladillo. Moments later, the resentful party set out.
Lorimer rode next to Håkan and confided to him, in their private jargon, that his approach to the expedition had been mistaken all along. Under such harsh conditions, with his limited scientific equipment, it would be impossible to find the minuscule shards of evidence he was looking for. Remainders of tissue in a salt desert blasted by the sun? Impossible. Water. He needed water. Vestiges of the primitive life form could only have been preserved in a liquid environment.